Conventionally, many manufacturers, including electric appliance and automobile makers, produce a variety of products in which electric systems, such as electric or electronic circuits, are used. Further, provided in correlation with these products are service manuals that furnish detailed information for use as a reference for the inspection or the maintenance and repair of the products. Ordinarily, such service manuals are supplied as printed matter, but recently, digitized service manuals (electronic service manuals), which can be browsed using PCs (Personal computers), are increasingly being provided.
Multiple technical drawings, such as circuit diagrams and board diagrams, are inserted in the service manuals. Required for the technical drawings, which include circuit diagrams and board diagrams, are means for arbitrarily enlarging, reducing or moving them during browsing. Therefore, for the electronic service manuals, the use of a vector graphics data format is desired, and for this, the most common vector graphics data format, PDF (Portable Document Format), is employed.
While most electronic service manuals are those obtained by directly digitizing the printed matter for the service manuals, there are also electronic service manuals for which a hyperlink, for coupling data, is embedded at a predetermined location so that the display of a circuit diagram, for example, can be quickly changed to display the caption for the circuit diagram.
Furthermore, in patent document 1, disclosed below, is a parts search system wherein a server and a user terminal are connected across a network, and wherein when the server receives a product or parts search request issued by the user terminal, the server transmits to the user terminal information that is related to a requested product or part.
Patent Document 1: Japanese Patent Application Publication No. 2002-99550
However, for an electronic service manual wherein a hyperlink is embedded for coupling data, an electronic service manual producer must designate in advance data to be coupled, and moreover, must embed a hyperlink for coupling the data. At present, where there are service manuals for a large variety of products and an extensive number of parts are included in the service manuals, an enormous amount of labor is required to embed hyperlinks in these parts, and the embedding process is very difficult.
Further, revision of an electronic service manual is required for various reasons, e.g., when alteration, addition or deletion is performed for parts that are mounted on the board of a product consonant with an electronic service manual, or when an error is found in an entry in an electronic service manual. However, when an electronic service manual is prepared by using a PDF file, for example, an electronic service manual producer must either re-create an electronic service manual that reflects the contents of a revision and newly distribute the revision, or must prepare a file describing the contents of the revision, distribute the file separately from the electronic service manual and request that users to refer to the file, wherein the contents of the revision are recorded, when referring to the electronic service manual.
When a revision of an electronic service manual is newly distributed, it is difficult for a user to identify how and in which portion it has been revised, and each time the electronic service manual is revised, a new electronic service manual that reflects the revision must be prepared and distributed. Further, when a file wherein the contents of the revision are recorded is prepared and distributed separately from the electronic service manual, a user must refer to both the original electronic service manual and the file that describes the contents of the revision, so that user convenience is deteriorated.
A part search system disclosed in patent document 1 is a system wherein images based on a parts list or a service manual are browsed by using a user terminal, and the location of a search requested part is narrowed down in accordance with an instruction issued using a mouse, and wherein the enlarged image of the location designated by a user using the mouse and detailed information therefor are provided by a server, so that the user's search operation is supported. According to this technique, since the user terminal and the server are interconnected by a network, when an electronic service manual is revised, a user can immediately refer to the revision. However, it is still difficult for the user the identify how and in which portion it has been revised.